What is a business approach to Online marketing?

Online Marketing

Karen Coleman VP of integrated marketing for Text100 Australia and New Zealand explains that marketers and communications leads don’t need and can’t use all the data available to them. Here’s her guide to measuring what matters. In online marketing, there’s no such thing as a free lunch – you have to earn it. In the same way, today’s brands need to earn the right to sell, promote and provide information to their potential customers. So how can we use insights from multiple online marketing channels to earn stronger customer relationships?

Data is the key to better communications and ROI. Whether it’s big, mobile, performance, product or campaign data, data is something that online marketing can no longer ignore, especially for those who want to connect in personalised ways. But with the number of communication channels growing and customer behaviours constantly changing, many marketers still struggle to use data to connect with customers and ensure a consistent, seamless brand experience. For some, data in online marketing snowballs out of control.

The good news, however, is that with data, it’s not necessarily about knowing it all, it’s about measuring what matters. Marketers – whether agency or in-house need to think less like brand advocates and more like business leaders. They need to focus on the broader business problems they or their clients are facing, be brave enough to challenge the existing thinking and use data to back up their strategy and recommendations. Is a Facebook like or an email open rate really going to sell that product or service?

Measuring What Matters

There are hundreds of different metrics that can give you a sense of what might be happening on your website, social media channels or e-commerce pages, but most are not truly indicative of what drives business results. Measuring website traffic, page views, subscribers and time spent on the site offers only superficial detail. In order to hone in on the metrics that really matter, brands need to think about the business problems they’re trying to solve and then figure out which metrics will reflect improvements in that area.

It’s all about tracking and evaluating what drives action. What channels are bringing in buying customers? What elements are in play when customers make multiple purchases? What is the churn rate? The right data tells you what customers are actually doing, which helps marketers not only to drive campaigns but also justify ROI. The strategy needs to reflect your business goals and map back to your unique needs.

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